As a Catholic, I can't think of any Baptist I admire more than Albert Mohler, a first-class thinker and writer, and a man with a heart for God and for God's people.
I think his reflections on the heartbreak and scandal of divorce probably touch each and every one of us, either in our own situation or int he situations of people who are near and dear to us.
He is undoubtedly right that divorce has done more damage to Christian marriages than "gay" "marriage" ever will. (I myself think that "gay" "marriage" is in large part a symptom that metaphorically, marriage itself has AIDS. If marriage were not already very sick, in fact immune-deficient, it is impossible that a mutant opportunistic infection like "gay" "marriage" would ever be a threat.)
So what's to be done?
What say ye?
To: Mrs. Don-o
One can altruistically accept that gay marriage would not affect society unless children were to be introduced into the mix. And they are; by IVF, adoption and when one partner has bio children as a result of a prior heterosexual liason. IMHO Gay marriage was simply a way for homosexual couples to be fully accepted by family and society.
More destructive (to a civil society) than gay marriage is the dissolution of heterosexual marriages; by the common-law co-habitation with multiple partners, producing dozens of children who have full siblings, half-siblings, step-siblings etc., scattered all over the globe with no sense of family continuity.
Visits to gran’ma’s house will soon require biometric IDs.
2 posted on
10/04/2010 1:04:35 PM PDT by
sodpoodle
(Despair; man's surrender. Laughter; God's redemption.)
To: Mrs. Don-o
Wonderful article. I agree that as Christians we should have higher standards than the world where marriage is concerned.
Of course lots of people that aren’t Christians call themselves Christians and that gets put into the equation as well.
To: Mrs. Don-o
You cannot possibly be a conservative and think that divorce is ok. I thank God everyday that I was raised to believe that divorce is not an option. So far (knock on wood), we have not had a divorce in our family in three generations. We did have one divorce with my grandmother’s parents (back in 1920 believe it or not...lol) That was enough to turn our stomach’s on that mess. I believe that if people would put as much energy into their marriages as they do everything else we would be a much better nation. I agree that as a Catholic this guy is pretty decent.
To: Mrs. Don-o
This focus is long overdue.
Divorce wounds people, deeply. It wounds the spouses and the children.
5 posted on
10/04/2010 1:17:36 PM PDT by
fightinJAG
(Step away from the toilet. Let the housing market flush.)
To: Mrs. Don-o
For the faiths that recognize divorce, do they have to go through a process in their religion, or do they just rely on the gubberment to tell them if a marriage still exists or not?
Freegards
6 posted on
10/04/2010 1:23:10 PM PDT by
Ransomed
To: Mrs. Don-o
"Do-overs"..............it's the American way.
Forgiveness and making a new start when we mess up are integral to the Christian message. We can say "sorry" to God, wipe the slate clean and begin again. Unfortunately, we've taken that concept to places it was never intended to go. When a marriage is messed up, there's no closing that book and opening a new one.
I believe this confusion is due to the fact that so much of what passes for "Christianity" in the US is man centered and not God centered. God is there to help me.........God wants me to be happy............God can fulfill my dreams........Jesus saved me.........
Me, me, me...........it's all about me.
How many churches peddle this "feel-good" message where I am at the center and God is just another means to get "high"?
Simply put, they've removed the cross from Christianity. Once this happens, human suffering, difficulties and trials are things which have no value and must be dispensed with as also must the things which cause them. This includes things such as a difficult marriage. However, the cross is integral to Christianity. It is essential to Christianity.
The cross is not something about which you hear very much in the "praise-centered" evangelical churches, and sadly, in Catholicism too, these days. No, I don't mean blathering on about "thank you, thank you Jesus.......you saved me by your Cross". That's talking the talk.
I'm referring to "walking the walk" and taking up our own cross, as Jesus indicated when he said that "anyone who wants to be a follower of mine must take up his cross and follow me."
You reap what you sow.
8 posted on
10/04/2010 1:33:31 PM PDT by
marshmallow
("A country which kills its own children has no future" -Mother Teresa of Calcutta)
To: Mrs. Don-o
But the new focus on getting Christians to practice what they preach marks an important shift in the culture war front, and, if successful, could prove to be the most potent cultural argument evangelicals have ever deployed. Here, in the last line of the article, lies the kernel of the problem, I think.
The author states that there must be a "new focus on getting Christians to practice what they preach." I say there must be a new focus on getting Christians to preach, and teach one another from Scripture, God's view on divorce.
Which is that He hates it.
Christians, who study the Bible for themselves, would do well to notice how, over and over again, the Lord uses the "picture" of marriage to explain His relationship to His church (the community of believers) -- and to explain His hurt when the ones He loves betray Him -- how often He speaks of "adultery" when His people follow after other (false) gods.
The constant references to the relationship with the Father. Today how many young people never know by experience what a true, loving earthly father is?
In short, much of Christianity has failed to teach that God really, really wants you to take marriage seriously and to stay married with very few exceptions. Moreover, Christians should be taught that they go in to marriage with resources in Heaven by which to face life's challenges, including those in marriage.
To me the bottom line is being a follower of Jesus means wanting to live in a way that pleases God, and divorce and adultery don't. A serious commitment to godly living goes a long way toward creating and sustaining a serious commitment to marriage.
Also Christians must return to teaching against fornication. It's a simple fact that the social acceptance of premartial sex undermines marriage.
One can't be guilty of not practicing what is not preached.
9 posted on
10/04/2010 1:36:55 PM PDT by
fightinJAG
(Step away from the toilet. Let the housing market flush.)
To: Mrs. Don-o
I’ve been making the same argument for years. But I’m glad to see that finally it’s getting the attention it deserves. If we want to save marriage and the family, we have to deal with the problem of easy divorces.
To: Mrs. Don-o
What a load...
Anyone who addresses the subject of divorce, but fails to note eighty percent of all divorces are sought by women, is a coward and a hypocrite.
To: Mrs. Don-o
What a load...
Anyone who addresses the subject of divorce, but fails to note eighty percent of all divorces are sought by women, is a coward and a hypocrite.
To: Mrs. Don-o
While I agree that divorce is definitely a problem that Christians should work together to reduce, however, the premise of this article is wrong - Christians divorce at the same rate as the general population.
This false premise started with a survey from George Barna, which has been proven to be wrong. However, his bad work has been taken as truth and continued to spread.
http://brewright.blogspot.com/2006/12/christian-divorce-rates.html
“Many people believe that Christian marriages end in divorce just as often as non-Christian, but it turns out, using the best data available, that this is not true.”
“To illustrate, here are the divorce rates among ever-married respondents in the General Social Survey (GSS, 2000-2004)—one of the best known sources of sociological data. “Frequent” is attending church about once a week or more.
58%, non-frequent Black Protestants
54%, non-frequent Evangelicals
51%, no religion (e.g., atheists & agnostics)
48%, ALL NON-CHRISTIANS
48%, non-frequent, other religions
47%, frequent Black Protestants
42%, non-frequent, mainline Protestants
41%, ALL CHRISTIANS
41%, non-frequent Catholics
39%, Jews
38%, frequent other religions
34%, frequent Evangelicals
32%, ALL FREQUENT CHRISTIANS
32%, frequent mainline Protestants
23%, frequent Catholics”
“Why do so many people believe otherwise? It appears to stem from the work of George Barna. In well-publicized studies, he has compared divorce rates of “born again” Christians against non-Christians, and he finds little difference. Here’s the catch: his type of analysis labels as “non-Christian” many mainline Protestants, such as Presbyterians, Lutherans, and Episcopalians, and most Catholics. As such, he is comparing Christians against Christians.”
To: Mrs. Don-o
Christian churches should not perform marriages for people who have had certain types of divorces. If a couple had a “no fault” divorce, a solid, conservative church should not conduct a marriage ceremony for them again. They can get married in front of a judge or other civil service.
To: Mrs. Don-o
Abuse, addiction or adultery.
-Grunthors’ only allowable grounds for divorce.
19 posted on
10/04/2010 2:03:25 PM PDT by
Grunthor
(Tax cuts for the poor! If the poor can keep more money they may start hiring again!)
To: Mrs. Don-o
Tough issue. A church I go threatened to remove church membership of a couple that was getting divorced because of unhappiness (no cheating or physical abuse). The couple refused, left the church, patched things up ultimately and returned to the church. Very hard feelings for a while there though.
To: Mrs. Don-o
The touchstone for Mohler's jeremiad is an essay by Mark A. Smith of the University of Washington titled, "Religion, Divorce, and the Missing Culture War in America," which was published in the Spring edition of Political Science Quarterly.... ....This occurred even though, as Smith writes, divorce, which is clearly and strongly condemned in the Bible, was prevalent among conservative Christians. His findings show that 43 percent of evangelical Protestants divorce, higher than almost any other religious group and above the national average of 38 percent. (Other surveys show the divorce rate is highest in Red States and actually lowest in Blue States.)
Here's another set of results re divorce statistics that I found many years ago, interesting mainly because it breaks with statistics given in this article. The whole series makes for interesting reading, but here's the summary...
In the past several posts, I have presented data from various surveys regarding divorce rates among Christians compared to others. Here I would like to summarize these findings plus offer some qualifications about how much they tell us. 1) Active Christians vs. non-active Christians. In each of the studies, those Christians, whether Protestant or Catholic, who attended church about once a week or more had substantially lower divorce rates than those Christians who did attended church less frequently.
2) Christians vs. members of other faiths. It's not clear that there are meaningful differences in divorce rates between Christians and members of other religions. Of all the issues analyzed here, this is the most ambiguous because of the inconsistent nature of the "other religion" data. The composition of "other religions" varied a lot across sample, and a clearer statement on this comparison would need to examine other religions individually.
3) Christians vs. people of no faith. Christians as a group, but especially those who were active, had substantially lower divorce rates than individuals professing no religious belief (e.g., atheism, agnosticism). Sometimes as much as half the rate.
4) Black versus white Christians. Black Protestants, or, in the case of the GSS data, individuals attending predominately black denominations, have much higher divorce rates than white Protestants or members of other religions. It's unclear if this is a simple race effect (i.e., blacks vs. whites regardless of religion) or a race by religion effect (the effect of religion varies by race).
5) Protestants versus Catholics. In some data sets active Catholics had somewhat lower divorce rates than protestants, in other data sets they had comparable rates. No consistent difference emerged across data sets.
6) Frequency of attendance. Divorce rates for Christians drop considerably when going from period attendance to weekly attendance. I.e., the functional form does not appear to be linear, rather it's a threshold effect at about one week.
24 posted on
10/04/2010 2:50:49 PM PDT by
Alex Murphy
("Posting news feeds, making eyes bleed, he's hated on seven continents")
To: Mrs. Don-o
I saw Al Mohler and Robert Godfrey at a conference last month and Robert Godfrey (from California) said he was asked his opinion about Proposition 8 on gay marriage. His response was, “where were all these concerned people when the divorce laws where being liberalized?” Clearly, he didn’t see divorce as something the church should have taken lightly.
To: Mrs. Don-o
Having known several people who were, or are Christians who have gone thru divorce I can with 100% certainty and absolute truth tell you all this:
The cause of the divorce was a spouse losing their faith, and subsequently taking their anger and hostility out on the spouse who remained a Bible believing Christian.
31 posted on
10/04/2010 4:17:35 PM PDT by
vpintheak
(Love of God, Family and Country has made me an extremist.)
To: Mrs. Don-o
To: Mrs. Don-o
35 posted on
10/04/2010 8:31:04 PM PDT by
little jeremiah
(Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.)
To: Mrs. Don-o
This sounds like a wise person — with a lot of facts. I was astounded by some of them.
40 posted on
10/05/2010 6:52:45 PM PDT by
Salvation
("With God all things are possible." Matthew 19:26)
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